Precious
In Saint Remèze museum: Wise and living Lavender
Updating : 15/06/2006
To discover lavender, its history, cultivation and benefits, let's meet in Ardèche, at Saint Remèze, and visit the museum devoted to it. At the same time you will profit from the spectacle of the blue wave of the lavender fields which undulate, as far as the eye can see, in this beautiful South Rhône-Alpes area.
Nobody will be surprised to learn that lavender was not born yesterday. In the times of «Pliney» the elder in the 1st century, it was already talked about, and lavender was ranked among the precious plants by doctors and botanists.
It has to be said that it has countless virtues. Lavender is a strong antiseptic and a healing substance with relaxing effects. It is used, and everybody knows it, to deodorize the house and to perfume linen. It is also a very efficient and natural anti-moth (no worse than chemical products with an offensive smell and that make you cough)
Lavender and its essential oil were already mentioned in the New Testament. Celts called it «nard» and would you believe it, it is with this famous "nard" that Mary-Magdalene anointed Jesus' feet and we didn't read this in the Da Vinci Code!
Lavender grows on all continents and counts fervent amateurs absolutely everywhere, but it is in the South of France, that it is the most beautiful, the most fragrant, the most everything!
On the plateaus of the Ardèche, lavender aspic, with high camphor content (so, very often used in pharmacy), covers the scrubland at 200 and 600 m, whereas the fine lavender grows well between 500 and 1400 m altitude. Together, they have given birth to a hybrid, the "lavandin". It's thanks to the bees that the two varieties met. It is the same bees which produce lavender-honey with such an incomparable fragrance. It is the first lavender by-product, if we can say that.
At the Saint Remèze museum, you will also learn how, in times gone by, lavender was harvested with the sickle, before putting it in a small bag called «saquette» and slung across the shoulder. It was hard work.
All the farms with a water point at the edge of the fields, used to have a still and, if production is today largely industrialized, lavender remains one of the authentic regional miracles which fascinates all those living in the area, as well as all those who come to visit it.
Practical
«Le Musée de la Lavande» is on the road to Gorges (D 490) in the Ardèche department at Saint Remèze
Tel.: 04 75 04 37 26
It is open from April 1st to September 30th every day from 10 a.m. to 7 p.m.
Tariffs: Entry 5 euros for adults and 2.50 euros for children between 7 and 14 years old.
The visit starts with a 15 minute video which tells the history, the botany and the distillation. Then, you discover some stills of a collection, exhibitions, a botanical garden, a botanical pathway and finally, the shop.
The Tourist Office in Montélimar proposes discovery tours at Cyril Hugues', a lavender producer, on July 18th and 25th.
With discovery of the Souspierre still, of the Caveau de la Valdaine (cosmetic products) (guided tours).
The visit ends with a tasting-session of the cocktail «Lavender Colour» elaborated by Henri Revol, barman at the « Relais de l'Empereur» and with a dinner with local lavender products in a restaurant partner of the "Club des Villes de Terroir" (towns with typical rural produce).
30 euros per adult.
Tel.: 04 75 01 00 20
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